6th grader overturns hedgehog ban

UPI ^ | today | staff

[Ron Jeremy]

LAWRENCE, Kan., Jan. 6 (UPI) -- A sixth-grader at a Lawrence, Kansas, school has successfully lobbied for a change in a municipal law that barred him from keeping a hedgehog as a pet.

Judson King, 11, said that he began his lobbying campaign a year ago with a letter to the city commission, the Lawrence Journal-World reported Tuesday. In December, after written and oral presentations, the commissioners, convinced that hedgehogs pose no threat to the Kansas beef cattle industry, changed the law.

Hedgehogs, which look something like small porcupines, are native to Europe and Africa. They were banned in Lawrence because of fears that they might carry foot-and-mouth disease.

Judson, a student at Corpus Christi Catholic School, decided about three years ago that he wanted a pet hedgehog. His mother, Rebecca Weeks, said she was happy to learn that they were illegal.

"I thought, this is my out. Now I don't have to get him one," Weeks said. "Then he said, 'How do we make them legal?'"

[Welsh Rabbit]

When I was a little kid in Germany, my friend and I found a dead hedgehog on the way to school. My friend thought it would be funny to put it inside a nearby convertible. Later that night at dinner, my dad mentioned that a coworker told him he found a dead hedgehog in his car.

Not much of story really, but the article triggered this nearly forgotten memory.

[JoeProBono]

Whattcha writin' on Ron?

"Ron Jeremy is nicknamed the Hedgehog"

[Daffynition]

I didn't know that. Thanks.

[JoeProBono]

Can you hear me NOW?

[JoeProBono]

Can you hear me NOW?

[Daffynition]

[uglybiker]

Dinsdale?